Website Accessibility Compliance
To address the needs of users of all ages and abilities, the SPH website has been designed to meet Level AA of the WCAG 2.0 Standards for AODA compliance.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible.
Following these guidelines helps make our web content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including vision and hearing loss, physical, learning and cognitive disabilities, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and various combinations of different disabilities.
Following these guidelines also makes our Web content more inclusive for all users.
Accessibility Features
Implementing WCAG 2.0 Guidelines provides the following features as part of the content on our website and overall framework:
Perceivable
- Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be changed into alternate formats that people may need, such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or plain language.
- Provide alternatives for time-based media.
- Create content that can be presented in different ways (for example, a simplified layout) without losing information or structure.
- Make it easier for users to view and hear content including separating foreground from background.
Operable
- Make all functionality available from a keyboard.
- Provide users enough time to read and use content.
- Design of information and content to prevent seizures.
- Provide ways to help users navigate, find content, and determine where they are.
Understandable
- Make text content readable and understandable.
- Make Web pages appear and operate in predictable ways.
- Help users avoid and correct mistakes.
Robust
- Maximize compatibility with current and future user agents, including assistive technologies.
To conform to these requirements SPH has implemented a number of online features in the design of our website to meet these standards, including the following examples:
- Text Scaling Tools.
- Alternate tags on images and links to be read by reading software.
- Assurance that there are no images with text overlays that can not be read.
- Assurance that redundant (duplicate links) are not present on a single page.
- Installation of a language identification code in the header of all pages.
- Passing colour contrast ratios for all text and graphic colours.
Understanding WCAG 2.0
- WCAG 2.0 is an internationally accepted standard for web accessibility developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international team of experts.
- WCAG 2.0 sets out guidelines for organizations to follow to make their websites more accessible for people with disabilities. The guidelines cover issues such as writing web content in clear language, providing alternate text for images and making sure someone can navigate websites with just a keyboard.
- Each guideline has three levels of accessibility: A, AA and AAA. Level AAA is the highest level of accessibility.
SPH has followed WCAG 2.0 guidelines when developing our current website and will continue to follow them and other best practices when updating our website in future.
